Week 2 (15 Weeks) (04/16/12)

Wt: 17.5 pounds

Monday

Other than once at two in the morning Nova has been awesome with regards to doing her business outdoors.  With it being the start of a new week and the whole training with regards to going outside has concluded I want to begin other things with regards to training.  Before I go into that however I’d like to go over some things that I started the moment I got home for the first time with Nova:

Leash Training/Manners:

All too often I see people being dragged around by their dogs while on leash.  It irks me very much so because, to me, it shows that the dog is in charge not the human.  Often times they will remark “oh I don’t mind…”  To this I say “bull%^&*” everyone hates being dragged around by their dog, many have just given up or don’t know what to do, in turn they have convinced themselves they don’t care.  This may also have ramifications beyond the simple walk according to many “experts”.  Note: I’m about to talk about a certain mindset with regards to dog training that not everyone may believe in, but it may benefit you to read it anyway.  When you let your dog lead and pull during a walk you let your dog believe that he/she is in charge.  We obviously know that we are clearly in charge as we go where we want, this isn’t that clear for the dog however.  To the dog it seems like he/she leading and thus is the “alpha dog”.  As the name implies, alpha’s do what they want whenever they want.  Many people feel that letting your dog be alpha dog results in many behavior issues.  I don’t agree with all the things posed by this mindset, I do agree with some points however.  You should have your dog trailing you, with little or no sniffing with all the focus dedicated to the walk.  It is better for both you and the dog.  You: for obvious reasons, and the dog: less strain on the neck for one, it also burns more mental energy when the dog has to focus on walk at the same speed as you.

 “How do you do this?” you say?  Well it’s quite simple as is much of dog training all that is required is consistency, patience, consistency and more patience.  I have several ways that one may go about leash training there dog.  These are all methods I have used as I rather not talk about things I have experienced.

Positive Reinforcement Method: Put on the dogs regular collar (not a pinch or choke collar) and start walking.  As soon as the dog pulls the leash tight stop moving and wait till the dog loosens up, then start walking again.  Rinse and repeat.  The goal is to tell that dog that the walk stops when he/she pulls on the leash.  This is by far the hardest, I did this for 3 weeks with my old dog when she was 7 months old and it was just beginning to work.  Only do this if you want to shoot yourself… Seriously though, expect a lot of time investment with this as it does take a while. 

Pinch Collar:  Many people hate pinch collars citing that it is inhumane and cruel etc etc.  Often times (but not always) these people are the ones whose dogs are not disciplined in anyway.  The concept behind the pinch collar is that a bunch of blunted metal prongs are pointed inward at the dogs throat.  Every time the dog does something incorrectly on the walk (i.e pulls on the leash) a weak tug or correction is done, this tightens the links resulting a pinching sensation for the dogs that does hurt a tiny bit.

 

Ok, now if you’ve never seen a pinch collar before the image above may frighten you and you may end up jumping on the bandwagon an starting yelling “durr huurrr durrr animal derp cruelty herp”.  If not now comes the good part, if used correctly (emphasis on correctly) you can get your dog heeling at your side in under 5 minutes.  In a day or two you will rarely every have to pull on the leash to guide your dog.  At around a month you can usually get rid of the collar and go back to simple collar.  All this can be done with almost no pain to the dog and the presents of collar is often enough.  I will not go over how to actually use a pinch collar as there are youtube videos out there that do a far better job than text can.  I also don’t want any misunderstandings as using this tool incorrectly is animal cruelty.  This should only be used on walks as well, using it to bully your dog into doing tricks or other such things is unacceptable.  I had ones of these from day one and I used it on Nova, after about 20 yards she got the message and never pulls on the leash again.  After about a month I will put away the collar and switch back to her regular collar.  One final thing to note: this is not the same as a choke collar, and while it may not seem like it, a choke collar can actually hurt a stubborn dog very slowly over the course of its life, every time  your dog sees a squirrel or something it will go after it, and many times the dog won’t give a %^& about constricted breathing and will just pull harder.  A year or two later you have a dog that has a damage trachea and you haven’t really solved the problem.

Physical Correction (not as bad as it sounds): I really like this method, but it does require you to really “know” your dog and to have a really strong bond with him/her.  This also requires the dog to have some understanding of what heel walking is.  I have never tried this upfront to get a dog to heel with a leash for the first time.  Instead, many months after owning my first dog I wanted to train her to heel without a leash.  Obviously a pinch collar wouldn’t work here.  The way it works is you get your dog to heel, every time she brakes formation you get down to the dogs level and tell them that they done wrong (no yelling or angriness).  Dogs are a lot smarter than you think, and if your dog knows you well it will get the idea very fast.

If you want to finally have a dog that can heel you are free to use any of the methods listed above but I would recommend the pinch collar by far.  Nova who is 15 weeks old heels better than 95% of the dogs I see on the trail.  She is smart and is able to do so off leash just as well with minimal training as dogs tend to understand the concept of walking by your side.  You want to make sure to let your dog run free though on occasion.  I have a large garden that spans the entire length of my apartment complex that I let Nova run free in.  Do this only if you are confident in your dog not running away and you can recall your dog at any time to head home.

There are also some other rules you should setup with your dog around the house.  They go as follows:

Permission to exit and enter: If you don’t enforce this your dog will run in and out of the house when the doors are open.  You don’t want this, for safety sake primary but it also lets you control your dog better, rules are a healthy part of having a dog.  While you may not mind, what happens if you open up the door to let a guest in and your dog runs out at a bajillion miles per hour (oh bajjilion is totally a real word).  Your dog is most likely running about or greeting the guest in his or her doggy ways and some people may not like this.  On a similar note you want to control when your dog meets the guest.  This should be after the dog has calmed down and you’ve talked with the person for a bit, the first time this may be a bit hard but tell the guest what you’re doing and they’ll understand.

Using furniture:  I don’t care if my dogs use the couch or bed at all, however I am aware others may not.  One of the first things I did when I got home was to teach Nova that she is not allowed on the couch or bed.  As I sat down on the couch she instantly jumped up, I corrected her and pushed her off.  She quickly learned she’s not allowed.  From there I let her up only when I motion her to, while she does occasional disobey when she’s excited she gets the idea.  I just need to make sure I correct her every time she hops up. 

Chewing: As is obvious dogs chew, a lot.  Since I’m already watching Nova like a hawk (unfortunately I’m a hawk with ADHD) I can catch it when she starts to chew on a sock or something.  I scold her only if I catch her in the act and then redirector her attention to one of her toys or bones.  Overtime this will make it less likely that she will take out her chewing urges out on my computer hardware (my headphone cables why!?!?!) and more on her toys.

Now that I’ve gotten most of my starting “things” done I’ll go on with the week, hopefully you’ve gotten something out of this advice.  If you want more information regarding manners and obedience please leave a comment.

Wednesday

I’ve been busy with finals stuff so I haven’t been able to write much on this blog. When I could write it’s been dedicated to getting the above section done, but summaries are cool right?

The previous days have been quite standard, Nova is getting better and better at peeing outside, her bladder size sucks but that’s to be expected.  I’ve also been practicing the “here” command or recall often in the garden and she’s become quite good at it.  On Tuesday I started teaching her “down” and that’s gone well

.

(One of the first attempts at down, not going well)

After about 10 tries she became and pro and was doing “down” over and over.  That’s the hard part done, all I need to do now is slowly remove the treats and hand motions with a ton of repetition.

 

(Success!)

I’ve also increased the walking distance drastically, she now gets a 40min walk in the morning and a 15 min walk in the afternoon, and after every walk she sleeps better than a baby koala.

(“Seriously, you used flash as well? Let me sleep!”)

While in the backyard today Nova found another “good” stick.  Most of the time she finds a stick and ditches it when she gets bored, but everyone once in a while she finds a awesome stick, and she will not leave it, she will pee, poo, chase birds, air currents etc. all the while having this stick in her mouth.  It gets quite hilarious at times as she finds sticks that are bigger than herself.  This is cute and all, however, she does get disobedient when she finds an awesome stick so I did several things today to try to get that out of her.  I would call “here” if she came right away she keeps the stick and I let her go play.  Every once in a while I would take the stick from her, if tried to snatch it back or hold on to it I would go “aaaat!” and then keep the stick for around 20s.  If she didn’t resist me taking it she would get it back right away.  After doing this for about 5min she got the idea and gave up the stick much more willing and came much faster on “here” commands.  Now why did I do this exercise, first off I want to teach her that I own everything that she “finds”, more importantly however it shows her that if she cooperates she will get the object of interest back, if not she loses it.  This ties in with when she’s off leash, this helps her respond better when I give her a command while her attention is being held by something else, it also results in less direct disobedience as I could call her back when she see’s something she’s interested in (dog, car, ball etc.) because she thinks she’ll get the object of her desire much faster if she obeys.  Training for this is vital as it could save your dog’s life when he/she is running off to a life threating situation and all you have is your voice to save your loved one.

(Not sure where she got that stick, 2x4’s don’t tend to fall from tree’s)

Thursday

Only have one class today so I can spend a lot of time with Nova.  I gave her a nice 40min walk so she passed out in her crate at the moment.  She still has problems with getting distracted on walks “oh look a leaf!” but I guess that’s a puppy for you.  I finished the indoor treat training for the “down” trick and she pretty much gets it 100%, now I need to practice it over and over again for different situations (before eating, before coming in…etc.) until she can do it as well as recall or sit commands.  Not sure what I want to do  next, perhaps stay as that is probably up there on mandatory commands for a dog.

Later on in the day I tried teaching her fetch and it worked quite well, I’ll try again tomorrow outdoors to see if she can do that yet.  On another completely unrelated note: Nova’s nails are sharp as hell!  I should really stop being lazy at trim them so I don’t lose an eye when she decides to stretch while still in bed (yes she sleeps with me).

Friday

Uneventful day, Nova is however really good at letting me know when she needs to go outside to do her business.  No mistakes in the house today or yesterday! :D

Saturday

Went to my parents’ house today to get shots and such for Nova (the adoption center where I got her is near by).  On a side note: when we were heading to my parents’ house she had a heat stroke of sorts, thanks god I was able to isolate the puke to my pants and not my dad’s nice Audi.  Not sure why she vomited, maybe she’s just not use to the heat?  After that she was her typical self and slept the whole car ride.  When we went to the adoption center I was surprised at Nova’s lack of barking, most dogs present were barking but she just didn’t give a damn.  This carried over when she was getting shots, she just kinda sat there and took it like a champ.  Overall a great day, taking her out is really vital at this age as she needs to socialize as much as possible. 

Oh and other good news: she didn’t pee once indoors at my parents’ house.  Yay!

Sunday

What originally was going to be a peaceful day went all wrong.  My friend and I planned to go off roading with his Jeep, however we decided to leave the main trail which resulted us getting stuck, for 8 hours…  Long story short: using 2 sets of come alongs we managed to brute force the Jeep out of its pit.

The whole time Nova was very well behaved, I did have yell at her when she decided she wanted to eat some of the deer poo but other than that she stayed very close and just watched while chewing some sticks.  When we had to hike out to get some more equipment she followed calmly and didn’t run off.

(Contrary to what the picture might suggest Nova is actually really good at not getting in the way while using cars.)